Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

The end of 100⁰ days means the start of firewood splitting season. Beautiful weather and beautiful smells chasing down veins of fat wood.

 

Good smells, yeah. Just split a bunch of wet Hickory. It's at the house in the woodshed for next winter, and still smells like horses pissed all over the yard! Distinctive. Grandaughter said "Eewww"

 

Red oak smells like vomit.

 

I actually kinda like that wet oak, vomit smell. The best I've processed from this last load of logs has been the Camphor tree rounds. Not quite as great a smell as pine, but a close second.

 

Red cedar locally (actually a type of juniper) has the nicest smell all the time...even when you're burning a piece the smoke smells great. The wood is purple, but you can't get it to stay that way in wood work projects, it browns out.

 

I like the smell of fresh cut , sappy Douglas fir

 

I process and burn 90% Doug Fir and I would have to agree

 

I recently got into some alder that I split this last summer. Until now I have primarily burned fir, cottonwood, and maple. I have to say this alder is nice stuff. It lights easily and it burns hot. Plus they grow like weeds over here. Anyone else burning alder?

 

Alder is a nice wood , especially for the shoulder seasons or mixed with the fir . It doesn't store long though so you don't want to cut it too many seasons ahead of burning it

 

I'm burning 3-4 year old wood now, ash, dead elm, some hickory. Really hot fires, even with minimum air allowed. But the chimney cleaned nicely this morning...only a wee bit of creosote swept out. The wood had not been burnt last year or the year before.

 

We lost all of our ash trees to the emerald ash borer so I've been burning that almost exclusively this year. We burn a lot of poplar too. People around here scoff that it is not good firewood but I think they're wrong. It burns faster than other woods, but it burns hot and clean. I'll occasionally get walnut mixed in as well as some oak.

 

Poplar burns well, but does not 'coal'. Like maple and newspaper.

 

I used to think that Red/black oak (the one with the pointy leaves) was the worst as far as smelling bad. Nooo -- green Pin oak is worse. Last year I was given some (pin oak) from tree service working in our neighborhood. I got it split and stacked on the side of my drive, and more than once, had people ask me if something had died inside of my stack. This stuff, if you catch it at the right/wrong time, is worse than vomit. still, it is good heat content wood.
Here is just one of many charts on BTU (heat content ) of various woods. This one is as ranked by highest on top. I get "Osage orange" once in a while. Sadly they are usually small trees.
What Firewood Burns The Hottest? - Asheville NC - Environmental (environmentalchimneyservice.com)

 

I also like the smell of pine burning -- problem is (unless it is "bone" dry) cresote can be a big issue. I have turned down FREE pine trees. Call me picky, but the"tradional" hardwoods, are mostly all I burn.

 

Good move -- the drier the better -except you use more

 

I'm burning 12 year old madrone , that shit is like coal

 

Hi guys.

I just found this thread. I haven't done much exploring of the site until recently, I keep finding gems like this one. I got my house a few years ago and have been running a woodstove in the lower level to heat the floors a bit when it gets really cold. The house is a split level rancher, or I've heard them called a bi-level. At some point a PO had a chimney going up one side of the house, it was a double lined pipe so I knew that it was for a woodstove. I had it checked/cleaned then found an old Russo welded steel woodstove locally.



I knew nothing about it other then I could burn wood in it and stop freezing inside of my house. The whole house is electric, including a heat pump which functions, it just doesn't do a great job below 40°. I was able to download an owners manual from the manufacturer, but beyond that I know almost nothing about the stove and have not run across anyone else that owns one. A local fireplace store told me that they used to sell them back in the early 80's when they were new, and that they were a good quality stove in their day. The catalytic converter is long dead and I have no plans to buy a replacement.

Once I had a woodstove, I had to dive head first into the world of firewood. Growing up in the mid-atlantic, hardwoods are the norm for firewood. White and red oak, hickory, maple. Lately Ash wood has been abundant because of a beetle infestation that wiped out groves of the ash.

I needed a cheap way to store the wood, so I started using pallets as legos and came up with this contraption. Some old cedar posts from a discarded split rail fence became uprights, some makeshift framing for the tin and cheap tin for a roof. A local metal roof company had a pile of the cover sheets for $1/linear foot. I doubt that I spent $200 on the whole thing, which works fine for me. No one as to look at it, no neighbors behind me. It was meant to last just a few years as I would like to move onto a pellet stove.

 

Nice.

I get my catalytic combusters from Condar.
If you are so inclined.
https://www.condar.com/Combustors.html
https://www.woodstovecombustors.com/stove-brands.html#Russo

 

If it has not dried out in 12 years - it never will.
Mandrone is one of the higher BTU/ton woods. Guessing it is a lot like "Osage Orange" where it is also super rot/decay resistant.
We do not have Mandrone around here, so I have never seen it , much less burned it.

 

yeah , madrone takes 2-3 years to season properly , it stores forever and doesn't seem to lose any heat output even if its been in the woodshed forever

Madrone (or Arbutus as its known in BC) , only grows close to the coast of the Pacific Ocean in a narrow band from southern BC to northern California . Its an evergreen , leafed tree , looks weird in the snow , still has all its foliage

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbutus_menziesii